Just a quick shot I took while hiking through Oak Creek Canyon in Sedona a few months ago. I love the shot, mostly because of the memories it holds, but I realize it's far from perfect. I've adjusted the lighting and color a bit in PS...is there anything I could have done while taking a shot like this to improve it, or is the problem in the lighting, particularly the heavy shadows on the right side? Thanks for any C & C!

The image looks a bit washed out. Have you tried darkening it just a bit? Or maybe cropping out the rock formation on the left, and creating a more vertical composition; with the water leading to the foliage and then to the sky.

Thank you! I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me, but the left third is completely unneeded. Without the washed out rocks, the picture looks much better. (Sorry, I don't have time to fix it and post)

Good composition IMHO (untrained) opinion but the sky looks fake; it needs more graduation at the bottom and a different shade of blue. The greens on the right look way oversaturated/overprocessed. Also, it were me, I would set the burn tool to about 3% and with a very large brush make some passes over the left side of the image until it was somewhat darker (less exposed). Or I would adjust the exposure in RAW.

Edited to add--the rocks in the top center are also burned out--if you shot RAW you may be able to recover some detail.

Also edited to add--I really like this shot; but I think the PP could be improved to make it outstanding.

the sky looks fake; it needs more graduation at the bottom and a different shade of blue.

Click to expand...

You've never been to Sedona, have you? I spent five days walking around saying, "I can't believe the sky is that blue!" It is exactly the color you see in the photo. If I had used a graduated filter, it would have been way too dark at the top. You're right about the greens on the right side...they're way overprocessed. The right side was very, very dark on the original shot and I had to do too much to make it lighter and brighter.